Friday, January 04, 2019

In case you missed it over the holidays, here's game design luminary Warren Spector interviewed recently before a live audience in Sinespace. Among the topics touched, we discuss the new game he worked on, Underworld Ascendant, his much-anticipated upcoming game System Shock 3, developing in Unity 3D, and his skepticism with VR. Here's some highlights with timecodes:

4:30: Warren talks about the relationship between Underworld Ascendant and the groundbreaking PC game Ultima Underworld, which he produced in 1992, and discusses the influence of that game on the simulation genre in general.

12:05: Russ and Warren talk about how high-end graphics in AAA games are becoming a limit on development — and how Otherside is dealing with this challenge, including the highly stylized look of UA which is inspired by miniatures gaming.

15:20: Warren and Will from his team discuss the advantages of creating immersive worlds in Unity 3D.

22:26: Warren talks about Otherside’s development of System Shock 3, how the studio got the license to make the sequel, and what we can expect from the game.

25:00: Why Warren is skeptical about VR, which he predicted three years ago had deep “cultural and social problems”. Warren then goes on to talk about VR hype, its future and uses, his own experiences working on VR games back in the 90s — and worrying about your wife coming up from behind you with a baseball bat when you’re in virtual reality.

More highlights (and credits) after the break:

31:33: Adam asks Warren about whether he’s interested in developing mobile/tablet games — and the kinds of games he personally plays on mobile and tablet. And also, what his favorite game platform right now is.

33:40: Audience member “Binary Split” asks Warren if there’s a limit to the fundamental scope to immersive sims. Warren talks about that and replayability of immersive sims like Deus Ex — and meeting a hardcore JC Denton cosplaying fan who played Deux Ex an incredible number of times.

37:11: Audience member “Rogue Gastel” asks about the best way of optimizing frame rate performance in Unity; Warren’s engineer Will offers some tips.

43:40: Michelle on the Sinespace team asks Warren to share basic advice for people who want to get started in games — and break into the industry. Warren mentions that when hiring people, he looks for people with wide interests outside of games: “Don’t neglect the humanities… The quickest way to *not* get a job with me is to say, ‘I play games all the time, that’s what I do!’ Everybody loves games, but if all you do is play games and you don’t read, and you don’t play sports, and you don’t go to movies, and you don’t listen to music… all you’re going to bring to the table is old ideas. So have a life, you know?”

Interview features Russ Pitts of the Escapist (with the cowboy hat and scarf), and Adam Frisby, lead developer of Sinespace (wearing the Deus Ex-style business suit) and by dial-in Will Teixeira, Warren’s Lead Engineer at OtherSide Entertainment. (I also had to do the interview via dial-in, so my avatar isn't featured.)